Aric Almirola got his big break in January when he was named to drive the iconic No. 43 car for Richard Petty Motorsports.

The move was part of a chain of events as AJ Allmendinger left RPM for Penske Racing to replace Kurt Busch. Almirola had 25 career Cup starts prior to the season but that had spanned five years. This was his first full-time opportunity.

So in some ways he was still a rookie. And yet he wasn’t as he made his first Cup start in 2007.

Almirola started out having a rookie type of season with only three top-20 finishes in his first nine races.

But the honeymoon with Ford didn’t last long and Almirola still struggled throughout the summer, with no finish better than 17th after a sixth-place run at Dover in June.

With his job on the line, Almirola got his third crew chief of the year when Todd Parrott was named his pit boss with 10 races left in the season.

And that’s when it all turned around. In the final six races, Almirola had four finishes of 15th or better.

“I just fit really well with this whole group and I click really well with Todd,” Almirola said. “Everything since we started at Chicago has just been great.

“We’ve been fast every weekend and had good cars. We didn’t really get great results the first few races because things kept happening that were out of our control, but then all of that started the change.”

Those solid runs late in the year made a strong argument for Almirola to remain at RPM, and in the final weekend of the season, he re-signed with the team for 2013.

“When we made the crew chief change that put his stock up,” Petty said. “We found out it wasn’t a one-sided deal. We kept blaming him for some of the stuff that was going on and it wasn’t but half of it his fault.”

Highlight: The highlight was winning the pole at Charlotte. This was the iconic No. 43 car on the pole for one of the biggest races of the season. It was a huge boost for Almirola in general and it showed that he could run fast laps.

Low point: At Kansas in October, Almirola led 69 laps. He led just 78 laps all season, so that would seem to be a good thing. But he blew a right front tire, hit the wall with 53 laps left and wound up 29th.

Defining moment: The week after the Kansas disappointment, Almirola started 10th and finished fourth at Martinsville. He ran in the top 10 for much of the day. It was a solid 500 hard laps. That showed that Almirola wasn’t just fast, but that he could put together an entire race.

Outlook for 2013: Almirola should build on a year where he was 20th in the standings. But by how much? Still young at 27, Almirola has the potential to improve. If he can finish closer to 15th than 20th in the standings that would be considered steady progress as he tries to battle with the sport’s elite.

“I'm excited about next year,” Almirola said. “Todd Parrott and all these guys give me great racecars, so we're gonna win races."